Recommendation 1: Create opportunities for discussing and preparing the places and roles of digital cultural, scientific and artistic heritage in an emerging ambient intelligence landscape

W

e suggest that opportunities should be created at the European and national levels for larger

heritage organisations and networks, as well as major tourism agencies, academic and educational institu-tions, to discuss and prepare the roles and places of digital cultural, scientific and artistic heritage in an emerging ambient intelligence (AmI) landscape.

Such opportunities will be needed for the herit-

age organisations to become part of this landscape in a conscious and planned way. They will need to con-nect strongly with the AmI vision and make it work for them and their customers.

Recommendation 2: Create opportunities for heritage information experts, professionals and users to participate more fully in the prototyp-ing of IT-enhanced cultural experiences as well as novel ways to mediate cultural knowledge

T

he next waves of ICT systems and applications may well pave the way towards a digital herit-

age space capable of handling increasingly complex information environments, applications and resources. However, when it comes to prototyping IT-enhanced cultural experiences and novel ways to mediate cul-tural knowledge, new forms of collaboration and true interdisciplinary efforts will be needed.

A digital heritage space within an ambient intelli-

gence landscape cannot be created by technological research and development alone. Experts and prac-titioners from ­ and clients of ­ cultural, artistic and scientific heritage organisations (e.g. curators, archi-vists, librarians, educational programme managers), Arts & Humanities scholars and students, and experts from cultural hotspots such as historic city centres or larger heritage sites need to be involved in a more qualitative and effective way.

iven the rather slow uptake of new technolo-gies by many heritage organisations, it seems

likely that they will become blind spots in an emerg-ing ambient intelligence landscape. There is enough evidence that their digital surroundings will develop much faster than these organisations and smaller cul-tural networks can adopt and employ.

In fact, for smaller and also medium-sized institu-

tions the benefits of most current and future tech-nologies will need to be realised within national and larger regional initiatives. In such initiatives, a lead-ing role will require to be played by digital herit-age networks, innovative and inspiring examples of which already exist in the European Union's mem-ber states. Furthermore, there will over the coming years be an increasing demand for supportive digit-al services centres and ICT training programmes for technical and non-technical staff on how to handle new technologies.

Such funded mechanisms should enable small-

er institutions to keep the costs and risks of dig-ital heritage resources and services manageable while not being excluded from new technological developments.